Machine gunners vs. infantry

[daengle]

I have never built a machine gunner. They are nothing more than a waste of space. My reasons:
...
First strike or no first strike, Machine Gunners fall short of Infantry, IMO.

Your arguments are reasonable, Ranos, but...

If you only build infantry because the only job the MG is better at is defending against infantry you may find your opponents benifit from building MG's.
It's a rock-scissors-paper thing.

 

[LordKestrel]

Your arguments are reasonable, Ranos, but...

If you only build infantry because the only job the MG is better at is defending against infantry you may find your opponents benifit from building MG's.
It's a rock-scissors-paper thing.

It doesn't matter if your opponent builds MG in this case, because the discussion is about defence, and MG can't attack.

Back on track, I personally build a few MG if I have a tech lead, or if I see a lot of Infantry from the other civs, but as soon as I can build Infantry, thats what I start using for city defense.

 

[Ranos]

Your arguments are reasonable, Ranos, but...

If you only build infantry because the only job the MG is better at is defending against infantry you may find your opponents benifit from building MG's.
It's a rock-scissors-paper thing.

I only build Infantry for defense. I still build Tanks for offense.

 

[AnotherJon]

Machine guns are good for defending stacks in the field before the AI gets tanks . I use them for this purpose rather than city defense where I agree that infantry are better.

 

[Colossian]

I'm not too sure about the odds here. When you want to pick a city defence, what is a better choice - infantry or machine gunners?

BTW, What is a city defence? Just standing on a city? Can you accept the pillage your worker improvements by enemies?